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If you are interested in writing programs for the TPU or the eTPU, there are two "Must-Haves". First, you must
have the tpu simulator developed by ASH WARE. We struggled in
the early years of the TPU without the simulator and it was not an easy time. The TPU crunches
along a half the clock rate of the CPU and without the simulator, your only view into the code is
through dual port RAM and the control registers. A logic analyzer was usually required to monitor
the I/O pins and we had to build custom hardware to simulate inputs. It was easy to figure out when something went wrong but it was very difficult to figure out why.
The Simulator gives you everything you need to control and
monitor I/O pins and to watch your code execute. The folks at ASH WARE have done a great job and
their product is mature and well thought out. In fact, we rarely need to run our microcode on
real hardware because we can exercise the corner cases on the TPU simulator more easily and
because the simulator very faithfully models hardware behavior.
You will also need an instructional manual for the TPU. The only show in town is the excellent
book available from AMT Publishing. The book works hand
in hand with the ASH WARE simulator and is an in-depth stand-alone resource for working with
the TPU.
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